Free Second Wave by Anne McCaffrey Page B

reunited within the week.”
    “Standard measurement?” Acorna asked, as it differed from the Linyaari concept of time.
    Karina cupped her right eye with her thumb and index finger, consulting her inner timekeeper, then nodded. “Standard, yes.”
    They thanked her, and the com screen went blank.
    “What in the multiverse did she mean by that?” Joh Becker asked them.

    S he was such a freak that she didn’t even have a proper name, like all of the others. The Friends called her The Mutation and sometimes addressed her as Mu. The Others called her Narhii, which in their language meant “New.”
    But she was not new any longer. She had existed for six full rotations of the Star and was tall, awkward, and changing. As a baby and a toddler, she had longed to be held, but the Friends were far too busy and the Others didn’t have arms, though they lay beside her and nuzzled her with their soft noses when she brought her troubles to them, and sometimes touched her horn with one of theirs, which comforted her instantly, though it was not what she instinctively craved.
    She shared many characteristics with the Others, physiologically, but she was a biped, like the Friends. Most of the time most of them were bipeds anyway. They changed shapes when it suited them. Even their dwellings changed shapes depending on who was utilizing them and for what purpose.
    She preferred the flower-strewn fields where the Others lived, though they sheltered in caves during bad weather, eating dried grasses and grains provided by the Friends and reminiscing about what their ancestors told them about life on their planet of origin.
    The Friends had good stories, too, and they didn’t mind if she listened, but they had no interest in educating her. Their involvement with her was mostly scientific. They studied her. A portion of every day of her life had been spent in the laboratory, having her bodily fluids collected and analyzed, being stuck with needles to take her blood, being scanned by computers, tested, and documented.
    Worst of all, they invaded her mind. They not only seemed able to tell what she was thinking, but they made her think about specific topics, and when she replied, verbally or just by thinking, they probed and probed for more details. When she was little, she had tried very hard to answer their questions in such a way as to please them; but they never seemed pleased by anything and indeed, always seemed impatient.
    During the last two seasons, their attitude toward her changed from one of boredom to anticipation. They had begun to expect something from her. The nature of their questions changed. Had she experienced unusual bleeding from her reproductive orifice or a feeling of heaviness in her lower abdomen? Any warmth or unusual urges?
    She had no idea what they considered unusual, but the questions made her uncomfortable anyway. Did they think she was ill? Would they care? She had never been ill, but the Others spoke about it among themselves, and how a touch from one of their horns could remedy even the worst illness, which seemed to be a bodily malfunction. Her body, misshapen as it was compared to everybody else’s, had always functioned well enough to suit her, if not the Friends. They were not deliberately unkind, and if she expressed a need for something tangible, they supplied it in a disinterested way, but the new gleam in their eyes was not appreciation or fondness, and their probing and questions were even more relentless than they had been before.
    Finally, she was sitting at the table with Akasa, the female who was most often her questioner. Akasa had not been satisfied with her answers. “You are reaching what should be puberty for your kin—for you,” she said aloud. “Do you feel no changes, no urges, no different wishes toward other beings, especially males?”
    Odus, the male interrogator, entered the room. He would have been watching from behind the wall panel, opaque from within the room, transparent